AMPUp Advisory Committee - Feb 27th, 2025

Meeting held via remote participation. Materials were available from https://www.arlingtonma.gov/Home/Components/Calendar/Event/35906/18.

Review of Meeting Minutes

The committee approved the minutes from their January 30, 2025 meeting.

Planning Process: Overview and Schedule Update

(Phil Schaeffing, Stantec) Mr. Schaeffing says he's excited to hear that the group's formed an engagement committee.

Mr. Schaeffing would like to give an update on the planning process. Stantec will begin speaking with department heads next week. They'd like to understand how they use the existing master plan, along with what's worked well and what hasn't. They'll take a driving tour of the town with Director Claire Ricker and Assistant Director Sarah Suarez on Friday.

Stantec has been thinking about the public launch of the comprehensive planning process, along with the initial round of public outreach. They'd like to have the launch event on April 1, April 2, or April 3, so that it's several weeks in advance of the annual Town Meeting. The launch event will explain what a comprehensive plan is and share demographics and trends pertaining to Arlington. They're still figuring out the interactive piece, but they want to get people thinking about what the future of Arlington could look like. Stantec will produce communications materials once the time and place are confirmed.

(Tristan Boyd, AMPUp Committee Chair) Mr. Boyd thinks that early April sounds nice. He asks when we'll have a firm date. He'd like the outreach subcommittee to be on the same page as Stantec.

(Claire Ricker, Planning Director) Ms. Ricker thinks that Thursday April 3rd will be best. She'd prefer to have the meeting at the High School or Ottoson Middle School, rather than at Town Hall.

(Phil Schaeffing) Mr. Schaeffing suggests leaving two or three weeks for advertising and outreach.

(Ann LeRoyer, AMPUp) Ms. LeRoyer suggests having the event in a school cafeteria, because they'll have tables for breakout groups.

(Rebecca Gruber, AMPUp) Ms. Gruber agrees. She's not sure how much enthusiasm we'll be able to generate in four weeks. Ms. Gruber expects to see a rolling increase in engagement, where we don't get it all at the first meeting. She thinks we need to start, in order to build momentum.

(Phil Schaeffing) Mr. Schaeffing thinks the committee can have a big impact by helping to get the word out.

(Alison LeFlore, Stantec) Ms. LeFlore tells the committee that we have to start somewhere. She believes we can generate interest and that public meetings are always valuable. The thinks that 3--3.5 weeks is the sweet spot for advertising public events.

(Cheryl Miller, AMPUp) Ms. Miller asks if the outreach material will include a standard blurb, and when the materials will be available.

(Phil Schaeffing) Mr. Schaeffing says they'll produce the outreach materials once the date has been finalized. He expects that to happen next week, or perhaps the week after.

(Claire Ricker) Ms. Ricker says the town has a notification list with about 8000 subscribers, and we'll be able to announce the meeting there.

(Rebecca Gruber) Ms. Gruber thinks we may be able to piggy-back on the interest that normally comes with Town Meeting and local elections.

(Tristan Boyd) Mr. Boyd asks about local town media, like YourArlington.

(Claire Ricker) Ms. Ricker says that YourArlington usually contacts the town when it's interested in a story

(Rebecca Gruber) Ms. Gruber offers to reach out to YourArlington, to let them know about the comprehensive plan kickoff event. She suggests we try to get a mention in the Robins Library's April bulletin.

(Ann LeRoyer) Ms. LeRoyer says the Council of Aging also has a newsletter.

(Phil Schaeffing) Mr. Schaeffing wants to summarize the community engagement goals we talked about last time. The committee felt that outreach should be new and different, and there was a desire to assess the depth and breadth of outreach.

(Alison LeFlore) Ms. LeFlore believes there's a balance between broad engagement that reaches lots of people, and deep engagement that gets into details. We will do both, but need to have an overarching goal. She says the committee has to make a decision here, as longer conversations tend to involve fewer people.

(Lillian Hartman, AMPUp) Ms. Hartman says there's interest in reaching a diverse group of people, and going beyond the groups that always participate.

(Alison LeFlore) Ms. LeFlore says that people who don't respond to outreach don't respond for a reason. She says that first conversations tend to be short, and the goal is to bring them in.

(Lillian Hartman) Ms. Hartman says the goal is to bring new people in.

(Paul Selker, AMPUp) Mr. Selker says the outreach subcommittee started working on a draft set of principals. These follow the notion that we'll always hear from the usual suspects, but one voice is just one voice. For demographic questions, they wanted to ask "is this the first time you've responded to a town survey".

(Alison LeFlore) Ms. LeFlore says that getting more input tends to make the loud voices quieter. Regarding demographic questions, having more of them tends to reduce the number of responses. Fine-grained details of who responds aren't the most important thing to capture. She says there's a tradeoff between doing lots of outreach and doing lots of data analysis.

(Rebecca Gruber) Ms. Gruber sees a third dimension, beyond depth vs breadth: the need for awareness that a comprehensive planning process is happening. People will decide how much they'd like to be involved, but the comprehensive plan should feel like something that matters to people. She thinks that people won't engage on every issue, but may care a lot about specific ones. Ms. Gruber says there are organizations that have contact with members of Environmental Justice communities, including the Housing Corporation of Arlington, the Arlington Housing Authority, and Arlington EATS.

(Alison LeFlore) Ms. LeFlore would like to give the committee a homework assignment: developing a list of places to advertise and hold popup events, including religious and youth organizations. She thinks that flyering the town would be a great committee activity.

(Cheryl Miller) Ms. Miller would like the committee to have deep conversations with underrepresented groups, like the Special Education Parent Advisory Committee and the Disability Commission. She envisions these conversations being open-ended with some qualitative data.

(Alison LeFlore) Ms. LeFlore agrees that it's important to reach out to these groups.

(Cheryl Miller) Ms. Miller asks whether the committee's goal is to get people to events, or to collect data.

(Alison LeFlore) Ms. LeFlore says it's both.

Community Engagement Committee Report Back

(Tristan Boyd) Mr. Boyd summarizes the engagement subcommittee's meeting. Seven people attended the first meeting and they've drafted a set of principals. They'd like to have breadth to temper frequent voices and depth for underrepresented groups. They've been working on a list of events to attend and a list of questions to ask. The subcommittee would like their work to be both active and actionable, and they're trying to set a time for monthly meetings.

(Ann LeRoyer) Ms. LeRoyer asks when we'll be able to see the outreach materials. She'd like to review their look and language.

(Phil Schaeffing) Mr. Schaeffing says they'll be available in the next few weeks.

(Paul Selker) Mr. Selker says we're still feeling each other out as a group and figuring out how to work together. We'll work better together once we figure that out.

(Alison LeFlore) Ms. LeFlore agrees that we'll figure things out together.

(Phil Schaeffing) Mr. Schaeffing expects outreach to change throughout the process. We'll adapt and learn as we go.

(Tristan Boyd) Mr. Boyd would like to share the outreach principals document at the next committee meeting, and set aside some time to discuss it.

(Phil Schaeffing) Mr. Schaeffing says that Stantec will share outreach materials once the date and time of the kickoff have been finalized. He's relying on the committee to help with promotion.

(Tristan Boyd) Mr. Boyd notes that Arlington's Patriot's Day event is scheduled for April 20th. He believes that will be a good opportunity to table.

(Phil Schaeffing) Mr. Schaeffing says that event is on his radar.

(Sarah Suarez, Assistant Planning Director) Ms. Suarez says the town maintains a spreadsheet of outreach contacts. She'll share this with the committee as a starting point.

(Ann LeRoyer) Ms. LeRoyer thinks the Patriot's Day event might be too chaotic for outreach. She's not sure where we'd be able to table.

(Tristan Boyd) Mr. Boyd says there are plans for a family-friendly area in the Town Hall Gardens. As of January, this was part of the event planning materials.

New Business

(Claire Ricker) Ms. Ricker tells the Committee that she received a public records request for material related to consultant selection. She's in the process of collecting ranking materials from committee members.

(Lillian Hartman) Ms. Hartman asks if we'd settled on using the term "Master Plan" or "Comprehensive Plan".

(Claire Ricker) Ms. Ricker says that was resolved at the last meeting; the group decided to go with "Comprehensive Plan".

(Cheryl Miller) Ms. Miller asks where committee members should send their list of groups for outreach.

(Claire Ricker) Ms. Ricker offers to collect that information.

The next committee meeting will be held on March 27.

Adjourn

Meeting adjourned at 7:10 pm.